Frogs and lotuses

To business: Between races, Chalo Chalo players get to see their scores. Up until now, the scores have been indicated by solid blocks of colour. Something like this:

The trouble is that players can have negative scores (losing a race loses you one point), but the scheme above doesn't display any score below zero.
One solution we've been talking about is to use a special symbol to indicate negative points. I've been fiddling with this approach. Visually, as soon as a symbol was introduced to indicate negative points a couple more problems became apparent: the positive point indicators were less interesting to look at than the negative indicators, and the discrepancy between abstract and representative indicators was annoying.
Here's the work in progress as it stands now, using icons for both negative and positive icons. A lotus flower for positive, the frog for negative.

I'm not happy with it yet. I don't like the tension between the icons and the rectangles they inhabit. The grid of rectangles, on its own, divides up and 'activates' the screen space in a pleasing way, while the irregular outlines of the icons work to deny that grid. The two tendencies are battling with each other too much at the moment. Also, the dark, but coloured, backgrounds of the 'inhabited' rectangles are too similar in tone to the uninhabited squares, making the image feel fiddly.

Chalo Chalo is a racing game that doesn't focus on speed, but on tactical choices and outsmarting your friends. You compete locally with three to eight players at the same time on the same screen.

A unique landscape is generated for each race. During the countdown you make a plan, taking into account the terrain, your opponents and the power pickups.

With a special power, or just a simple nudge, you can send an opponent off track, sometimes with fatal consequences. But when the others are closing in, be sure you can pull it off without harming your own position.

Tomasz is best known for creating the anarchistic propaganda cartoon George Ought to Help
and its sequels. He also makes electronic music under the Mormo alias and created sound
effects for Sparpweed's game ibb & obb.